Blog entry imported from http://coldalienshore.blogspot.com/
"Life in Europe is fast becoming, in the words of one Parisian newspaper, "la grande pagaille"--the big mess.Virtually every airport is closed in England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and much of Norway, Italy, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. -from TheStar.com
The unprecedented air traffic disruptions in Europe due to the eruption of a volcano in southern Iceland is costing airlines more than $200 million per day, and causing widespread travel and trade difficulties worldwide. Bummer. What this means to me and Kyle is that, like everyone else, our plans of flying to Europe have been dashed for the time being. We're still uncertain about when we'll be able to depart, but it seems as if it may set us back as much as a week.
Being delayed by calamity puts me back into the mind of a time I was stranded in Europe, first by rioting, then by a terrorist attack. The year was 2005 and I had just turned 20 years old. I had ventured to the United Kingdom with 6 friends of mine on a backpacking trip, and we'd made our way through England, Wales, Ireland, and into Scotland. Upon our arrival in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, it occurred to us that the G8 summit of world leaders was taking place in nearby Gleneagles, Scotland. This resulted in massive protests and demonstrations across the UK, most notably in Edinburgh. Activists came from across Europe to participate in the protests, representing anti-authoritarian and anarchist groups from as far away as Greece and Turkey.
My friends and I, being the young mad Americans that we were, appeared to the casual glance to be more affiliated with the rioters than with anyone else. That is to say, all six of us were either punks or had long hair and regardless of our intentions at the demonstrations, we were assumed to be present for one reason only: to fuck shit up. This was not a terrible disappointment to us, and we busied ourselves exploring the ancient cityscape of old Edinburgh through the eyes of casual participants in its destruction for a couple of days.
The riotous condition of the city cannot be overstated: it was a total mess. The simple act of heading out into the street in search of, ohh I don't know, a pub, was transformed into a protracted adventure with unknown conclusions. We ventured toward Arthur's Seat, a tall mountain outcropping that overlooks the city, to find some peace in the quiet of the Highlands. The six of us climbed upon dark rock and mossy earth under a billowing sky of gray cloud. Rain threatened and cast a pallor of static and motion upon the sprawling city that lay beneath us. Dense crowds of writhing humans could be seen far below us, lodged in the narrow streets between rows of buildings, but the chaos could not be heard above the kind breath of the wind blowing in from the visible sea. We were happy to be away, above it all. To observe such a scene from above turned the lens into a much clearer perspective for me personally. It was a moment of peace but of disappointment, seeing that all of the screaming pleading demonstrators down below, intensely absorbed in the moment of their fury, had voices that carried only as far as the ringing ears of their neighbor. Not even the riot squad police, heavily clad in robotic garb and wielding giant shields, could hear or comprehend their insistent voices. Nor could we, as we breathed deeply the salty air and were glad to be together as friends, explorers of the world.
In one particular instance, we were heading back toward our hostel from a pub when a loud and dense bloc of protesters caught our attention. In a narrow alley hemmed on both sides by tall buildings, a standoff was occurring between a rectangular bloc of humanity and a uniformed, masked, shielded brigade of riot police. The police were determined to deter the mass from proceeding through the alley to Princes Street. The mass, in all likelihood indifferent to where they were headed but intent on disobeying the police, stood fast and gained participants, and the mob grew in size and noise. The front line of the mob locked arms and marched into the riot police, turning their backs and leaning against the shields. Cries of hate and fury would ring out when a police officer would shove someone with a shield, and the mantra would be, "Peace! This is a peaceful protest! Fascists!" Then the same voice would grunt with exertion as he would pry a cobble from the street and hurl it indiscriminately into the group of gestapo-esque policemen. The tone of the confrontation gradually spiraled into a wild pitch of screams and impending catastrophe. A dumpster was uprooted and pushed toward the line of police, and we decided we'd seen enough and left the scene before things got out of hand. The next day the local papers were plastered with photographs from that very alley where the clash became a bit bloody and many arrests were made.
We felt good to have gotten out of the mess before it exploded in our faces, but the bitter taste of disappointment lingered in our mouths. It was frustrating to walk all over the city and see the glaring assault of hypocrisy everywhere. As sympathetic to the demonstrators and demonstration as we were, it was hard to overlook the cries of "PEACE!" while bricks and newspaper machines filled the air like a bonanza of killer birds amok. The disparity of tactics by the anti-authoritarians was, as usual, heartbreakingly divided and counterproductive. Perhaps we weren't accustomed to the tolerance and relative gentleness of British law enforcement, because they seemed to us to at least be un-cruel, as they so often can be in America and most other places in the world. It was a disenchanting scene and we opted to flee to Sterling to catch up on some history and solitude.
Arriving in the quiet of Sterling was a tremendous change for us. We'd encountered nothing but bedlam for some time. While in Edinburgh, in addition to the rioting and protests, London had been declared the host of the 2012 Olympics. Apparently this was a matter of colossal importance to many Britons and the entire island went berserk with celebration. Meanwhile, I had run out of money and had only enough left to get me back to London and onto a plane at Gatwick airport bound for Dallas. After exploring the town of Sterling and some William Wallace/Robert the Bruce sanctified battlefields, we took a train back into Edinburgh where I was to cram my things into my backpack, board a train for London and leave my friends behind.
It was not to be this simple. Not at all.
I bade my farewells to my traveling partners of the last month in the UK and walked back to Waverly station, glad to be escaping the mess. It was only when I entered the station that I realized the mess had just grown by exponential leaps and become not one of mere chaos and stress but of death and carnage. The station was abustle with people clearly confused and afraid, and I had no idea that London's buses and Underground subways had just been bombed, killing an untold number of people. Then I spotted the BBC news ticker-screen high in the rafters of the station and was unbelieving of my eyes: LONDON ATTACKED! AT LEAST 30 DEAD AFTER TUBE AND CITY BUSES BOMBED.
As the slow hours ticked by and I floated in and out of consciousness, I became aware of a boisterous American fellow engaged in conversation a few seats behind me. I gathered from his bombastic verbal vomitus that he was from Baltimore and was also bound for London. It gave me hope to know that there were others on the train like me, heading for London and.....Ahhhh, the United States. But this Baltimorean annoyed me and I didn't want to team up with him, regardless of how it might help us both. I decided to neglect introducing myself and ignore his explosive laughter and arrogant manner of speaking. The Yank.
Those of us bound for Peterborough detrained somewhere in the middle of nowhere to transfer. It was late at night and everyone was exhausted from many hours of traveling. I sat on a bench and tried to sleep, and heard the baritone of the jovial Baltimorean approaching from behind me. I couldn't avoid him any longer. He walked past my bench and we locked eyes, and he smiled and nodded and asked, "Hey big man, where you headed?"
I suppose I looked awfully young, in fact I'm sure of it. My American accent further instigated him when I said with disinterest, "London, like everyone else.
His eyes lit and he made himself a seat on the bench next to me, extending his hand and introducing himself as Jamie. He has a red face and red hair, was rather portly and spoke like a person proud of their intellect. I don't remember precisely but something makes me think he said he'd gone to Harvard.
As I talked to him and got to know him a bit, I began to appreciate his loudness and sort of bookish conviviality. We decided we'd stick together and make sure we both made it to London on time and in one piece. It was midnight in rural England, the air was warm and wet, violence was in the air and the land was dark.
Three hours later we had acquired an additional comrade: Gregor, a Scotsman headed to London to visit his young son. He had been prowling the aisles of the train between the middle of nowhere and Peterborough, recruiting co-conspirators to put their money together and get a cab to come from London and pick us all up. It sounded like a wild plan, and costly, to get a London cabby to drive out into the night, 90 miles across the countryside to a gaggle of stranded travelers who say they'll be in Peterborough and pay him his fare. But we had no better plans, and Gregor had taken the initiative to get 12 people onboard. By the time we reached Peterborough, at two in the morning, everyone was mad with fatigue and anxiety. We scurried off the train, gathered our stuff, and kept our eyes on Gregor. Out into the dark parking lot and into a waiting cab, sure enough, waiting for us to cram ourselves in like sardines in a can. Twelve people and their bags, cross-hatched on two bench seats and a cargo area, stacked two and three people high, utter strangers on each other's laps afraid and weary and ready to see what happens.
Into the darkness we went, laughing and telling jokes, taking turns in the more comfortable spots, and enjoying the close quarters in spite of ourselves. In the smiles of the strangers-turned-friends in the cab, illuminated periodically by the highway lights careening past, was the faith and goodness of human people leaning on one another when they needed help, needed rest. I was but a young American. I didn't have any loved ones in London, no one whom I'd been unable to contact. I was just lost and trying to find my way back to Texas. And there was the Baltimorean, keeping us optimistic with his good nature and loud baritone. And Gregor the Scotsman, telling ridiculous jokes and smiling wearily, his sad eyes betraying his need to be with his son. There was a teen aged Englishman headed to his rural home from a soccer tournament, and a Londoner with her French friend headed for their apartments in Camden Town from holiday in Glasgow. It was a remarkable illustration, to tangibly see 12 people gathered together (together, indeed) by completely random circumstance, share moments and come to value one another, and know that in less than an hour each of them would go their individual ways, all over the world, and never see one another again.
Indeed, at 4 A.M., the cab dropped the last three of us off in Trafalgar Square. There was me, Jamie, and Gregor. The square was utterly deserted. It is one of London's most conspicuous and most active public places, and there wasn't a soul in sight. It would be akin to arriving at Times Square in New York City and hearing only the wind. We stumbled about on cramped legs for a few minutes, taking in a scene that would probably never be replicated again. Then we decided we needed beer.
As we tried to find a vendor that was open, Gregor dropped a money clip from his pocket and onto the sidewalk. I noticed and picked it up, noting that there were at least 200 Pounds in it, around $400. I caught up with him and handed it to him with a smile, as if to say, "Look how close you came to disaster, you jackass." His face was disbelieving, shocked, and he smiled and gave me a big hug. After what we'd been through that wild day together, he was still surprised that I returned what was his, I suppose. He bought my beer and a little extra for the road.
